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These notes are for you Aiden. Every time I am with you, I am so delighted. You are an amazing little guy. The animals in the book were so familiar to you. The cow was your favorite. It got your deep voice. You made me suck on a pacifier as you were sucking on another. You kept pushing it in my mouth ’till I finally gave in and did it.

It was your game of the day. The Disney pop up book was mutilated once again. The pop up figures are so inviting. Tearing them is a great satisfaction. You tore off Tarzan. I put him aside to glue later on. You got the piece back from me, put it on the page and clapped for yourself. You were so happy that you could piece him together again. I was sitting at the crib intending to reach for some old pacifiers that were along the wall from a few weeks ago. Before I even reached for them,

You anticipated what I would do , crawled under the crib and retrieved them. Connecting sequential events is a new trick and tons of fun to watch. The letters and numbers are more fascinating to you in the tub. Your game of surprise splash continues. Like a frog you crouch and suddenly stand and splash. We laugh together.

Run and chase also creates hysterics. You are going in and out of rooms ’till you decide to be caught. Sitting on grown up chairs has its attraction. Drinks and food seem

To taste better from a grown up chair. “uh, oh” and bubbles were clearly verbalized. “uh, oh” is useful for lots of situations that don’t go as planned…..like spilling my cup of water. You’ve got the tone and application down pat. Mommy and Daddy know all these things about you, but I am so thrilled to be sharing them with you.

I have been looking for a while now and I finally got an offer. I am super excited about the job and cant’ wait to start on October 1st. I will be an Associate Market Manager for Media at Quill/Staples. It is a great opportunity with a great company. They have great benefits and special perks because they are a publicly held company.

Yesterday while I was at Target with Aiden, all the sudden he started screaming. He has been sick for a few days with a cold and is pretty congested but screaming. He never screams like that. I thought maybe he got something stuck in the cart, maybe I pinched him accidentally. I had no idea what was wrong but I did know that he hasn’t really wanted me to touch his mouth much at all and I thought that a tooth might be coming soon. I had some of the most awesome things in the whole world in the diaper bag. They are orajel q-tips. They have the medicine in them so all you have to do is break one side off and then the medicine all flows into the other side. I got one of those out and he immediately calmed down before I even put the medicine on his gums. I put it on and he had a big smile on his face. As I was putting it on I saw something white and discovered that his first tooth had pushed through. It was so exciting for me and painful for him. He is drooling so much he could probably fill up the bathtub. I noticed this morning when I finally got his mouth pried open that it looks like one is pushing through on the top too.

Well we have been a little crazy since the last time I posted. Wow it has been over a month. Sorry about that. Aiden started crawling at 7 months. He is all over the place now and loves power cords and crawling under and through things. Right at this very moment we are watching Finding Nemo, I should say I am watching Finding Nemo and Aiden is crawling all over the floor and trying to chew on anything he can. I got him this crazy tunnel set that is huge and he loves crawling around in it and playing.

Today he was crying and I tried everything, pacifier, water, blankie, finally I took him into the kitchen and he pointed at a bottle. That was a first for him. It was so awesome. This past weekend we went to the Farm in Scales Mound (right by Galena) with a bunch of friends and had an amazing time. It rained almost the whole time but we all have such a great time no matter what we do so it was wonderful. He loves to go swimming and we go as often as we can to the pool right by our house. They have two zero depth pools so he walks right in and he is a little fishy already. He dunks his head under on purpose all the time and is great at a back float. Of course Steve or I hold him the whole time. We have gone on the slides with him at the pool and at the park and he seems to love anything outside. He also loves going on the swings at the park. We have been spending lots of quality time together since I lost my job. He is so amazing and wonderful and I adore being a mom more then I ever imagined.

I am looking for a job intently right now. I need something soon. I will miss being at home with Aiden but I am very excited to get back to work. I think that getting let go was a blessing in disguise. It has been so fantastic being able to spend so much time with Aiden but I know I am meant to go back to work. Not just because I like money but because I am ready to get my career back on track. I wish that every mom had the opportunity to spend this much time with there children when they are this young. It is so much fun to watch him learn new things everyday. Like the pointing thing today. When he figures things out or when Steve gets home from a long day at work and Aiden smiles big and knows exactly who his daddy is. It is such an amazing feeling of joy and love. He is also talking a lot and telling me everything that he wants. Too bad I don’t speak baby

Hope everyone is doing well. If you are reading this, let me know. I would love to get comments

Steve and I spent 2 hours at the Skokie parade today. Neither of us imagined it was going to be that long but it was a ton of fun. Next year we are going to see if everyone wants to come over and enjoy the parade from our house. It goes about a block away so we have a great location. It was Aiden’s 1st 4th of July parade. He had a good time except when the guns went off. Then Solo and Aiden both got a little freaked out. And I have decided Aiden can sleep anywhere, cubs game, 4th of July parade…etc.

We are having some people over this afternoon for a BBQ and then walking over to the fireworks at dusk. Anyone know when dusk is? I hate it when they don’t give a time. Tell me exactly when it starts, its easier that way. We also got a blow up pool for the back yard and are so excited to have it after being so used to having a pool in Berwyn.

Aiden has discovered how to roll over, and over and over. He is a very busy boy now. He rolls over and crawls backward around the room. He learned how to crawl backward a couple weeks ago but now that he can rollover by himself, he is all over the place. Today he is pretty crabby. I think he is really teething now cause he is in a very cranky mood and I haven’t been able to figure out why. It could also be that he is exhausted but I am guessing it is more due to teething. He is running a fever though so not sure what that means. I know my doctor said that running a fever isn’t a symptom of teething but lots of people think a low grade fever is a symptom so lets hope that is what it is. Right now we are watching a Baby Einstein CD that one of our friends made for us. it is about language and is in lots of different languages. He seems to be tolerating it but not sure if he is actually enjoying it or not. He isn’t screaming so that is improvement. Oh crap, its done. NOW WHAT. Gotta go..

I think Aiden does something new every single day now. 2 days ago, Tuesday I was sitting with him in the kiddy pool. I got him some new toys and as one of them drifted away from him he decided that he wanted to walk after it. Now when I say walk, I mean he took several steps. Of course being the mom that I am, I encouraged this by pushing the toy further and further away. I wanted to see if it was real or if I was going crazy again. Each time he took several steps trying to get the silly little toy. It was so cool to watch it finally click in his head how he can actually move his legs instead of trying to just move his upper body. I of course have to hold his hands still and probably will for a while but it is so cool to watch.

My MIL and FIL watched Aiden overnight last night and said that he rolled over by himself. He hasn’t done it by himself yet that I have seen but I’m not surprised at all. He has been trying for a week or so now to get his pacifier when it falls out of his mouth by moving his head instead of using his hands. He is so silly.

I had just given Aiden a bottle and we were sitting here listening to the Backyardigans songs on the computer. He was suffering from food coma as usually happens when he is very full and all the sudden I noticed he wasn’t dancing with me anymore. He fell asleep in my arms while I am swinging him around like a monkey. It almost made me cry. I know sounds weird but my hormones are still all out of whack so what can anyone expect from me. I wanted to keep holding him but decided he would probably sleep better if I put him in his crib. I would love to keep him this age forever. He is at the stage now that everything is amazing and he smiles at everything and everyone. I took him to my doc with me yesterday and you should of heard all the women in the office.

Aiden has been asleep for over 2 hours this afternoon. I just went and checked on him. I can’t help it, I get freaked out when I hear him scream, I get freaked out when he is silent. What can I say, I’m a crazy mom. He wasn’t taking naps for a while. I mean not for longer then 30 minutes at a time. It was horrible. I was ready to pull out all my hair. The sleeping thing has been going great at night though. He went to sleep last night without crying at all. It was wonderful. He hasn’t woken up the last couple of nights either so maybe this is the start of some good sleeping. Either that or he will do it for a week or so, just long enough for me to get used to it and then…wham…change to something completely different that makes all of us miserable for a few days until we figure out the pattern.

I’m very much looking forward to Steve’s 1st father’s day. I cant’ wait to give him his awesome present. Sorry I can’t tell you what it is, he reads this sometimes

I just got Aiden an Exersaucer last week. if you don’t know what it is, it is a stationary play seat that you sit a little one in. It has toys all around it and if it is low enough the baby can stand up in it. It is great for Aiden cause he loves to stand up so much that he can be entertained for a lot longer then any of his other toys. It has some great toys on it too. I actually took a whole bunch of pictures but I can’t ever remember how to upload them to flickr so I will have to ask Steve to remind me again. I also got him a walker for when he gets a little older. I don’t think he can use that yet but I haven’t’ tried yet either. Maybe I should.

It looks like we are going to get a new gas grill today or tomorrow too. We have had ours for over 5 years and we love it but it is broke right now. We were planning on just ordering the parts for it and fixing it but when I was looking through the ads in Sunday’s paper we found an amazing deal and are going to get a new one instead. Anyone want to buy a grill that doesn’t work and try and fix it?

Two nights ago, Tuesday, I decided to not only stop swaddling Aiden but also let him “cry it out”. At first I thought I was being a complete idiot to do this to him all at once. Steve and I talked about the fact that we needed to stop rocking him to sleep or feeding him to sleep so we wanted to start letting him cry it out. The doctor also said it was a good idea to start the process now because the closer to 6 months he got, the harder it would be. I was concerned because we were still swaddling him. How was he supposed to sooth himself if his arms are wrapped up tight? Anyway it has all worked out amazingly well so far. On Tuesday night it took him 30 minutes to fall asleep. He woke up in the middle of the night and it took him 19 minutes to get back to sleep. Last night, Wednesday, it took him 10 minutes to go to sleep and he didn’t get up until 5:30 this morning after going to bed at 7. He was with my MIL yesterday so I’m assuming she didn’t just put him down for naps but this morning I put him down, turned on the mobile and sound machine and he was out after 5 minutes of crying. I am so excited I can’t even tell you. Steve had warned me that it could take hours for him to calm down and go to sleep but thank goodness it didn’t cause I think I would of cracked at the 1 hour mark.

Everything else is pretty good. We started him on food over the last few weeks. So far he has had rice cereal and applesauce. Today he gets to try sweet potatoes so I can’t wait for that. I hope I remember to wear something disposable cause he likes to spit his food out at me Its kind of cute in a very messy sort of way.